Mailbag: Guest Strip Legalities

Q: The recent spate of flu-induced guest strips has brought back up something I’ve always wondered – what are the politics of the “fine print” of a guest comic? I was just looking at the Tom Brazelton guest strip for PVP, and the fine print is “PVP (c) Scott Kurtz”, “Guest Strip by Tom Brazelton”. Which is fine, but it always seems odd that a lot of guest artists don’t plug their own URL in the comic, and a ton don’t assert copyright over their own work, they accredit the copyright to the owner of the characters themselves, which seems odd. Is there any sort of standard for this sort of thing? Is this negotiated when an artist solicits guest strips (I’m guessing not because the attributions always seem to vary by guest, not by solicitor).